


now that you're here

by sky_blue_hightops



Series: Sun and Moon AU [1]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: ?? - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Kinda, Moon Powers Varian (Disney), Older Sibling Rapunzel (Disney), Platonic Soulmates, Protective Rapunzel (Disney)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_blue_hightops/pseuds/sky_blue_hightops
Summary: The first time she feels him, he’s just a flicker of cold in a sea of something colder. He’s something small in a big, lonely world, and she reaches out ever-so gently towards him.***Or, two reunions between Rapunzel and Varian.
Relationships: (lil bit) - Relationship, Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Varian, Rapunzel & Varian (Disney)
Series: Sun and Moon AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823434
Comments: 17
Kudos: 157





	now that you're here

The first time she feels him, he’s just a flicker of cold in a sea of something colder. He’s something small in a big, lonely world, and she reaches out ever-so gently towards him. She does not know why his chill differs from the harsh cold of the expanse of this other space, but he tucks easily against her own warmth as if they were two shapes made to cradle the other and is so quietly curious when he reaches out to her that she cannot help but be in awe. He is very little compared to her, so new, and she blinks open her eyes to feel tears bud at their corners.

Cass stares back from the other side of the tower, all but bristling in surprise and face lit up with a bright yellow glow. The ball they had been tossing back and forth has rolled out of Rapunzel’s reach, and Pascal looks both worried and enthralled as he chirps nervously from Cass’s shoulder. Her older sister doesn’t even blink, gold reflected in her wide hazel eyes. “Raps, your hair, it’s-”

There is no familiar weight on her shoulders. She feels her face twist in confusion before craning her neck and - all around her head and shoulders and arms, like a soft river of gold, her hair weaves itself into a halo. Strands bob slowly and it takes shape around her; not defensive, not agitated, it weaves into something that feels like an expression of the excitement deep in her chest. She tangles her fingers in it gently, feels the strands part at her touch and close around her palm, and meets Cassandra’s eyes again. This - her hair moving with a life of its own, stirred by Rapunzel’s emotions - is something completely new, just like the presence that’s already slotted against her soul like he’d been missing before now. Perhaps this is a meeting, perhaps this is a reunion, but she cannot help but smile at the thought of them finally being within reach of each other once more, and she  _ cannot help _ but want nothing more to feel him in her arms. She is filled up so completely with a happiness that her cheeks warm under the gentle sunshine of her magic, and Cass steps forwards until she’s close enough that Rapunzel can see the constellations of her own glowing freckles reflected in the eyes that peer back. 

Her small smile pulls into a bright, awed grin. “Oh, Cass,” she breathes, “he’s  _ wonderful _ .”

* * *

The first time she sees him, it has been fourteen years since that night in the tower when her hair learned how to fly. She expects more of that unrestrained joy when she finally lays eyes on him, like if she could just unanchor her feet from the earth, her soul could learn too, but whatever warmth fills her gets sidetracked by her own anger and worry - that’s  _ hers _ , down at the bottom of the hill, tied with his brother to a tree,  _ that’s hers _ , weak and unresponsive, and a snarl rises in her throat at the sight -

She tears her eyes away before she can get a full look at him. This was not how she planned on meeting her other half, and if it is up to her it certainly won’t be while one of them is tied down as if he is nothing more than power captured by the wrong hands. It is not the first time she feels much older than her years, protectiveness burning like flames from the center of her chest to the palms of her hands to the roots of her hair. It  _ is  _ her first real fight, however, but with Cassandra by her side, taking care of the would-be kidnappers requires nothing more than quick movement and quicker thinking; the sound of sword against knife and of breath rasping in her throat and her hair whistling through the air are the only sensations she lets herself focus on until it is all over, until her adrenaline fades and the warmth recedes from her face. Cass lingers in the center of the clearing to tie them up, but Rapunzel is already crossing to the tree on the fringe.

The steps she takes closer to him wash away her last dregs of anger. He looks stronger as she approaches, just enough for him to lift his head from where it had awkwardly pressed back into Eugene’s shoulder, to tighten his grip on his brother’s hand. He looks exhausted, shadows bruising the space under his eyes, and a little of the rage from earlier rises in her throat once more.

She swallows it down, however, when they finally lock eyes.

All the warmth she remembers from her whole life since that one moment when she was four comes flooding back. She feels and does not see the way her hair lights up the night around her, soft locks suspended in the magic-laden air between them. She sees and does not feel the way his hair fades a bright, shocking blue, the way his cheeks light up with small blue freckles, like stars against the shadows of his face. The dirt is under her knees before she knows it, and a grin stretches across her own weary face. She is so tired, suddenly, as if she hadn’t really  _ known _ the world without him in it.

She remembers how small he was when they first met - or, maybe when they’d met for the second or third or one hundred and twelfth time; the years are so hard to track without her moon to chase her through them - and feels the same cool brush of his presence in that space that only they seem to share, and wants nothing more than to fold that chill into the warmth she knows she is made from.  _ Hers _ , she thinks, along with  _ finally _ and  _ at last _ and  _ he’s still so small even now  _ and she can see the fractures and the jagged edges left from growing up under the tug of the opal that gave him his essence. She understands. She does not come without her own scars. But no amount of pain could stifle the beauty of his soul, the blue of his eyes as they gaze up unblinking at hers, or the awe she thinks is fully reflected in her own face.

She is on her knees before this boy she loves so very much, who has completed her since the beginning of time, and she just can't help the tremor in her hands when she cups his cheeks and smiles and says, “oh, you're  _ wonderful _ .”

**Author's Note:**

> written with light by sleeping at last on loop because it's literally perfect for these two and in this essay i will
> 
> jk here's a bit from our AU - i'm extremely emotionally attached to it and also these two so this was. the natural progression of events, i suppose. B)


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